


To Be an Angel

by SugaryFeline



Series: Angelstuck [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Angels, BAMF Roxy, Confused Dave, Confused Dirk, Conspiracy, Demons, Depression, Everyone's confused, Everyone's sad, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Little bit of Blood and Guts, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:46:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1407091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugaryFeline/pseuds/SugaryFeline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every human has a counterpart. Most are Angels, who live their lives with only one mission: When their human dies, bring its soul to Heaven. After they complete their task, they are rewarded a life time on Earth as a human. But things are never that simple, and never that easy.</p>
<p>When Dave dies, Dirk will have to find this out the hard way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Introduction: A few days in the life

**Author's Note:**

> So. Welcome.
> 
> This lovely little story of mine has been about an adventure and a half for me. Please bear with me for the first few parts, it may seem a little soap-opera-y. But don't worry! I have a point for everything in this story. (And hopefully it'll get better as I go on.)
> 
> This is my first attempt at writing in about a year (or, you know, two). I hope that thing's will get a little more interesting as I get back into the swing of things.
> 
> Anyway, This first chapter is kinda choppy, sorry for that, but it's only a prologue. Time does pass through this, very fast, but don't worry if you don't understand something. Just remember: I have a reason for everything.
> 
> I'd like to say thanks (a million times) to my wonderful beta, LencestuousSlurry (as known on Fanfiction.net). Go check her out, she's lovely. :3
> 
> So, without any further adieu, I give you the Prologue.

Sleep was a wonderful thing. Freedom to be whatever you could imagine and more encased in just a few short hours. The power to change everything around you to as you see fit, coupled with the knowledge that these changes were unchallenged, as this world you created was for your eyes only. The inescapable darkness that consumed you and that you fully welcomed like an old friend. The peace found in your own mind away from reality and its harshness. Yes, sleep was indeed a wonderful thing.

Oh, how you wish you could sleep.

The pace of ‘life’ around you was almost too much to bear sometimes, but you ignored it. The constant orders from above were tiring, the need to fulfill your duties ever present. The incessant thrum of movement around you never faded, yet you found a way to keep going. It was hard at times, to remember how you coped with such a busy existence, but you didn’t dare stop to reflect on your previous actions. Not until you were safely away from the world.

It was at those times that you could truly look back and see. See the way you changed the world. See the good you had done, and the evil you had stopped. See how many lives had been changed by your hand. See how you and your brethren shaped the universe to His desires. See how much of a waste everything was.

It was at times like these that you could welcome the darkness as an old friend.

His face was soft and peaceful, and for the hundredth time you wondered how it felt to slip away into nothingness, how it felt to create your own universe with no judgment placed upon you. You’d say you were jealous of him, if you could feel.

Just another perk to being one of His creations.

You would sigh if you could breathe. Instead, the pent up non-emotions showed via your closing eyes, if only for a second. The silence of the room was cut only by the high pitched noises coming from one of the machines by the bed. The beeping came at regular intervals and your eyes wandered to the small screen it came with, showing little green mountains being drawn and then disappearing just as quickly.

You wonder what it would be like to have a heart.

You turn your attention back to the child lying beside you, his face distorting in clear displeasure. A twitch of his body and a scrunch of his face, and you know it’s the beginnings of a nightmare. You pull a hand from under your head and rest it on top of the child’s eyes. You murmur a sweet, comforting lullaby into his ear and the movements stop, his features softening back into the peaceful expression you wish you could have.

A nurse walks into the quiet room, yet you pay her no mind. She checks the beeping monitors by the bed and records some information you don’t care about onto the clipboard she carries. You don’t notice the way she smiles sadly at the pale boy laying under the sheets, or the way she stands in the room for just a few seconds long than she should. You do notice, however, the warmth coming from her and the remorse she feels. You try to hold onto those feelings as long as you possibly can, but they’re ripped from your mental grasp as she leaves. You’re left with nothing but emptiness, not even being able to feel sorry for yourself.

What feels like hours passes by in minutes, and soon enough the hazy, quiet spell that had been resting over like a blanket over you is broken. The machines next to the bed run off track from their regular intervals and start to make their own erratic beat. Lights start to blink and you start to wonder if maybe it’s time, but it couldn’t be. Not yet. You haven’t received the Order.

Doctors and nurses alike rush into the small room and you find that to be best time to take your leave. You don’t want to see what they might to do the child. To your child.

Besides, you figure a little time outside of the room won’t hurt you.

The doors to the room slam open and you would have been startled had you not been expecting it. The doctors and nurses that had just rushed into the room start to rush out, along with the bed carrying the boy. Your eyes close for a second, tired, then lazily go back into the room to wait. It’s okay. You have time.

Minutes pass by like hours and you find yourself staring at the light blue wall across from you. The moonlight shines through the window placed on the wall that would be at the foot of the bed, had there been one in the room anymore. You wonder what the wall looks like with the setting sun.

The doctors and nurses come back with the bed, the child sleeping peacefully inside the blankets once more. When they scatter into the hallway, you look at the sleeping boy and blink your non-emotions away yet again. You reach over to the boy’s forehead, pulling your face closer to his, and kiss the soft skin there.

You suppose now would be as good as any to return to your fast-paced life, and as you wish the child a farewell that you know is falling on deaf ears, you yet again wish for the beautiful darkness of sleep.

~*~*~

You’ve had a lot of bad days in your life, but to say that this one was the worst wasn’t a stretch.

The first (and last) time you cried was when you were five, when the doctors told you your parents weren’t coming back. The first (but unfortunately, not last) time you screamed in public was when they told you they didn’t know what was wrong with you. The first (and thankfully last) time you pulled a chunk of hair right out of your skull was when they said they didn’t have a cure.

But today tops all of those, even the day they told you that you couldn’t have sweets anymore. Because today, those horrible doctors are telling you that you are going to die.

But Newsflash! Everyone dies at one point, yeah? So it shouldn’t be that much of a revelation, right?

Well, to a nine year-old boy who’s just been told he has maybe 5 years to live, it kind of _is_ a big revelation.

That’s the first time that you run away, and it definitely isn’t the last.

~*~*~

For someone who’s felt pain, misery, loneliness, and depression, though all in long forgotten dreams, you can’t seem to understand why humans do the things they do. As you sit on the roof of your Other’s ‘home’, staring at him through tired eyes, you contemplate why exactly he refuses to listen to the other humans. To _medical_ humans, nonetheless. You slowly blink your eyes to show your breathless sigh. You roll your head back in relief as you feel the call and pull of your higher ups.

You quickly tab on the window just below your Other to alert the medical humans walking by before flying off to your duties.

‘ _He’ll be fine_ ,’ you tell yourself, ‘ _The medics will find him_.’

~*~*~

When they find you on the roof, it’s the ‘last straw’. Not even days later you’re in a government building, sitting in an office labeled ‘WIC’, with one of your least favorite doctors sitting on your right and the hospital’s director on your left.

Hours pass in uncomfortable silence, then your name is called and you follow the adults with you into a smaller office down the hall. There are more adults in the room and you wonder what’s going on. But as they all start talking in their hushed ‘adult-talking’ voices, you decide that you really don’t care and sit down in one of the many chairs in the room. You think about how comfortable the chair is compared to the ones at the hospital instead of the conversation happening around you, words like ‘orphanage’ and ‘foster care’ going in one ear and out the other.

By the time they’re done, you’ve mentally gone through every chair in the hospital that you’ve sat in and compared it to this one now at least twice (you’ve sat in a lot of chairs). When the break in their conversation continues, but no one makes a more towards the door, you realize that they’re waiting on you to say something (you can tell because they’re all looking at you). You blink once, twice, and in that time span a single word comes to mind, ‘yes’. So you say it and it seems to be the right thing to say, because the adults are all talking again in louder voices, and papers are being exchanged.

You sit back in the seat a little more, enjoying the comfort while it lasts. You know that soon enough, you’ll be back to hard metal chairs and floors, the chairs and floors of the hospital. But as the adults stand up to give out handshakes and goodbyes, the man from behind the desk puts his hand on your shoulder and you're held back from walking outside the room. The doctor that you hate is leaning down, putting his arms around you in a way that makes you think he’s saying-

“Goodbye.”

And you can hardly believe your ears, but as the doctor pulls away, the director replaces him and repeats the word.

“Goodbye, son.”

And so, the first (but not last) time you were speechless was in front of a woman and man, seemingly married, with the words “Welcome to the family” on their tongues.


	2. Things get Interesting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter one, everybody! Yay!
> 
> Again, Thank you to my wonderful beta, LencestuousSlurry. Go check her out here: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4808189/
> 
> As for the new chapter, we're introduced to some new people, and some new things. What will this next chapter hold? It's a mystery!
> 
> Not really. Just read it.

“He is doing well in school and in his after school activities. He is excelling in his sports and-”

You know you shouldn’t ignore her, but you do anyway. You already know all of what she’s going to say, having seen most of it yourself, but that doesn’t excuse from the fact that she’ll listen to your report with rapt attention, just as she always does. You wonder sometimes if maybe she just likes listening to your voice, but you know she can’t feel, let alone like anything.

Especially you.

Er, you mean, your voice. She couldn’t like you voice.

The boy sitting beside you turns his head ever so slightly, giving you a wink and a knowing smile.

Stupid Jake and his ever knowledgeable self. How did he even know you were thinking that? You give a slow blink to show you exasperation, but you know he didn’t see it, because by the time your eyes open, he’s standing up to take Jane’s place in front of the podium.

As Jane settles in next to you and you prepare yourself for another long report riddled with ‘exciting adventures’, you think about what exactly you’re going to say in your own report. While Jake and Jane’s Others both have had very fast paced and exciting lives for the past month, yours really… hasn’t. In fact, for the past few reports, you’ve basically said the exact same thing.

Why does your Other have to be so… boring? (Why are you looking forward to the day the Orders come?)

With this train of thought, it seems like no time at all before you’re being nudged. You’re ripped away from your mind and you turn your head to find the culprit. A foot is digging into yours. You look up to Jane’s face and she gives you a sweet smile before darting her eyes forward and back to you. You look to where she pointed with her blue irises and find that Jake has left center stage for you. You blink slowly.

~*~*~

That was the last normal report you gave.

Not even a week passes by before things start to go wrong with your Other. He becomes sick with little warning, the only clue being his sudden exhaustion. You wouldn’t have believed his state to be so extreme had you not been there when he collapsed for the first time. You had alerted his guardians as to his situation when it was clear he wasn’t getting up on his own. Or at all, seeing as he passed out.

You accompany your Other to the nearest hospital and stay for the time it takes to settle him into a room and his guardians to go to him. You continuously leach the chaotic feelings coming from the two adults. Although they’re negative, they’re feelings none the less.

It’s days later when he finally wakes up, weak and frail looking. You would like to say that you stayed with him until his awakening, but instead, you stuck around your Commander, waiting for the Orders you’re sure are coming soon (Plus, you can’t really like anything in the first place, so what does it really matter?).

They don’t come. In fact, after another week, your Other is cleared and sent home. Things seem to get better from there. He spends more time with his friends, and as a result, you do too. He’s more careful with himself and others, and you notice a change in how he deals with and responds to his abnormality.

For some reason, his disconnection from most of the humans around him had a positive effect on how they viewed him. You wonder how that’s possible, and when you ask your other Flight companions, the only response you get is a vague smile and a giggle. You would be surprised at how unhelpful they were had you not expected it. (And seriously, do we need to go through this again? You can’t feel. Period. That includes surprise.)

Your Other starts to do more. You would elaborate on more, but it’s simply that, more. More of everything and anything he could do, which tends to be the more dangerous activities. Because of this, you stay around him more often. Your time management skills are tested, having to stretch between training, your Flight, your Commander, and your Other. And of course Him, but you could never get around that portion of your day; it was a must, a requirement, even.

It seems as though things start to get better for your Other. As you spend more time with him, he seems to become happier, laughing and smiling more and, dare you say, actually showing emotion. (It was a rare thing for your Other. You know, though, that he does have emotions [you’ve taken them for yourself more times than you can count].)

It’s the day before you’re supposed to give your next report, already having written it out and memorized in preparation, when the almost unthinkable happens.

~*~*~

It scares you.

Of course, you never show that, but that doesn’t make it any less true. This horrible, overwhelming, gut-wrenching feeling always passes over you every time you think about it. So you stop thinking about it. You stop caring about it. You stop caring about everything.

But again, that doesn’t make it any less true.

As you’re passed from house to house, family to family, you fall into yourself more and more. By the time the state doesn’t want to take care of you anymore and passes you off to the next one, no one can pierce the hard outer shell you’ve made.

That is, until you sit next to Her.

It’s your first day at another new school. As per usual, you wear your ‘First-day’ outfit; a pair of black jeans and your favorite hoodie. Your new ‘family’ insists you ride the bus your first day, and as a result, you freeze your ass off (it was the middle of November for Christ’s sake).

So when the bus finally stops in front of you, you scurry into the portable warmth. You take the first available seat to you, past misery of ill-chosen seating in the back of the bus fresh in your mind. But unfortunately for you, that is your first mistake.

(At least, it was a mistake at the time. Since then, you look back at that day with fondness.)

The first available seat just so happens to be occupied with the infamous Rose Lalonde, a girl known for her bark just as much as her bite. In the first few minutes of silence, you happen to notice three things. One, the seats surrounding the one you currently sit in are empty of bodies, the only occupants being books and book bags. Two, the people you see while doing a visual check of your surroundings are giving you not only curious looks, but fearful ones as well. And three, the bus must be on a gravel road or something because damn, it’s bumpy.

And then the girl beside you proceeds to scare the ever living shit out of you by not only talking, but by giving you an all-out interrogation. She finds out more about you in the next twenty minutes than all of your classes do in the next two weeks. (You still have no idea how she ever managed to do that, but you’ve never questioned her.)

She is your first real friend.

Even still, you never tell her about your death sentence. You keep that part of your life behind locked doors, what you did in the after hours of school always a mystery to those who ask. You never talk about your almost daily check-ups at the hospital. You never mention your growing pile of medications and prescriptions. You keep everything not relating to school a secret from your peers.

That is, until you run into Him.

It’s a normal check-up, something you almost look forward to now. Your ‘family’ lets you go to the hospital on your own, seeing as if they didn’t trust you by then, then there was something really wrong with them (it is almost the end of January). You almost always abuse this little freedom (maybe ‘almost always’ is stretching it, since you can’t remember the last time you didn’t abuse it).

It’s a good check-up, the doctor and you really only talking about family and how they are doing (you’ve known each other long enough. If the doctor wasn’t, well, you know, _your doctor_ , you’d consider him a close friend). As all good check-ups go, as soon as you’re done, you start your rounds around the hospital, saying hello to some patients you’ve come to know and to some who’ve only been recently admitted. The nurses pay no mind to your wandering around, simply saying hello to you and continuing on their way. Some even stop to chat.

After you go through the pleasantries with most of the nurses, you find yourself at your destination. The oncology ward. You head down to the child’s section and are immediately greeted with friendly faces and casual hellos. Or you would have been, had you not run into something and fallen back onto your ass.

That ‘something’ you ran into just so happens to be a kid, a boy, and just as you, fell right back onto his ass.

A quiet panic spreads through you at the thought that this kid might be a patient and could seriously have been hurt. You quickly pick yourself up and reach to help the other boy up when, to your shock, you see a little tag stuck to his white tee shirt. A volunteer.

The boy looks at you through thick lenses and you almost smirk at his shameless gawking. He grabs the hand you held out for him and you pull him up with surprising ease. This kid weighs nothing. But you really shouldn’t be calling him a kid, he’s your age.

How do you know that? Well, he told you.

In the weeks after that, you see more and more of John at the hospital. You find out that he’s been volunteering there for the past few weeks, and, when asked, you tell him that you volunteer as well (it’s not that you don’t want to tell people that you’re going to die, it just that, well, you don’t want to tell people that you’re going to die). It becomes a sort of game between the two of you of who can find who first, and you win every single time. Until one day, when he decides to come in early.

He finds out your secret. He doesn’t say anything to you about it for weeks (you had no idea he watched you walk out of your doctor’s office with more medication in your hand), and he even goes so far as to ask you to hang out with him after volunteer work.

At his house.

You accept, if only because ‘yes’ is the first word that comes to mind. That’s when you discover that he goes to the same school as you. And although it’s the middle of March, he still seeks you out between classes and at lunch. He becomes your second real friend.

Rose and John become close because of you. You learn that Rose likes knitting and that John is a huge prankster. The three of you decide to have movie nights once a month, and when you’re not at school, you’re either at the hospital with John or at Rose’s house (she only lives a few houses away). (You still go ‘home’ at night, using the early hours of the morning for ‘you-time’. You don’t need to sleep. The medicine would keep you up even if you tried.)

You should’ve known you couldn’t go like that forever. You should’ve known the happy facade that has become your life was going to end sooner or later. You should’ve known those small trips to the hospital were going to turn into one long-term stay eventually.

You’re in a coma for almost a week. The doctors say you’re lucky to be alive. Your guardians say that it was a miracle, that there are angels watching over you. Your friends say that people are asking about you at school. (That’s when you find out John knows. Rose isn’t very surprised by your news either, having figured something was wrong enough with you to keep you from interacting with the majority of the people around you.)

You’re glad to be getting out of there a few days later, but before they release you back to your lovely illusions, they give you the news.

You’re getting worse. They cut your time down from two years to just several months. They say to spend your time wisely.

So you do. Your guardians let you do things you weren’t supposed to, dangerous things that usually end up in you getting hurt. But you don’t care. Instead of closing everyone out further than you already had, you let them in. Anyone who wanted to get close to you could. It doesn’t matter to you anymore. You’re ready (that’s a lie). Hell, you even decide to write a will one day (it’s in crayon with a long forgotten stuffed animal as the only witness). You make sure your guardians know they’re appreciated, and even dare to say that you love them once.

You get over your fear quickly (another lie), realizing that you can’t do anything about it anyway (even though you would get on your knees and _beg_ if you could, just for the chance to know). You wait for it to come, welcoming it even (not at all), and right when it seems like it was all just a big joke, like nothing is actually going to happen, something does.

Something you are, in fact, not ready for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if you liked it, or if you have any suggestions! See any spelling/grammar errors? Please tell me and I'll fix it right away!
> 
> See you next week! ...Maybe?


	3. Orders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are. This chapter marks the middle of the first part. Things are starting to heat up a bit. I wonder what will happen....
> 
> As always, a huge thank you to my beta, who can be found here: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4808189/

You find your other Flight companions quickly, not having much time. They look at you with, if you didn’t know any better, sad-looking eyes. They already know. As if the Orders in your hand weren’t clue enough.

“It looks like this is it, old chap,” Jake says quietly from across the room. He doesn’t meet your eyes when you look at him, and you swear you feel a twinge of pain in your chest. Before you know it, Jane is hugging you tightly, whispering soft goodbyes in your ears. She looks like she’s about to cry, but you know she’s incapable. All of you are. But not for much longer.

They offer to fly with you, but you decline. Jake says only halfway, then, and you’re about to say no to that as well when you think better of it.

The flight is short, and you almost wish it was longer when you realize that this is the last time you’re going to see them.

This is the last time you’re going to fly with them. The last time you get to fly in general. The last time you get to watch the Earth come into view in all its majestic glory. The last time you feel His Love. The last time you get to feel others feelings. The last time you have to suffer not having any feelings of your own. The last time you get to sit on the sidelines of your Other’s life.

You smile, if only the tiniest bit.

You say goodbye to your Flight companions for the last time, telling them that it won’t be long for them either. That they don’t need to worry about you. If they could even worry in the first place.

As you continue your flight alone, you feel liberated. You feel like you can finally breathe for the first time. ‘ _No, not yet. Soon. Very soon._ ’ (You forgot for a second that you couldn’t breathe.) You make it to your Other's home, and as you hover outside of the window, you take a second to just _be_. You feel your wings flapping, the air around you stirring from the motion. You feel the soft light of the moon above you, and then feel it disappear as thick clouds rush in to cover the sky.

You open your eyes (When had they shut?) and grab the extra clothe you had draped over your shoulder, unfolding it and leaving it over your open palm. You go through the window, coming out the other side to your Other’s room.

If you could breathe, you would have gasped.

Instead of the calm atmosphere that you were expecting, you’re greeted with sheer chaos. What you thought were going to be the last few peaceful minutes of your Other’s life were apparently utter Hell.

You stare at the soon-to-be lifeless body of your Other, lying inside the center of a large circle painted with his own blood. There are cuts going up and down his body, some deep and others shallow. You’d choke on the smell of burning flesh if you weren’t focusing so much on where the smell is coming from. A large metal sword, red from heat, is being pressed into the center of your Other’s chest. You look to the one holding said sword and nearly gag.

A Demon.

A vile, awful, hideous Demon is trying to kill your Other.

You drop the forgotten clothe in your hand to the ground and reach for-

Your sword.

You left it with your commander.

You’re defenseless.

~*~*~

You fly as fast as you can, not daring to turn around. You Other barely moves in your arms and you fear for a second that he may have died already before you remember that you can’t feel fear.

If you could though, you’re sure you’d be feeling a lot of it right about now.

Your wing screams with pain every time you move it, and you can feel the thick ooze of blood running down your side from where a Demon got the drop on you. Or at least, you think it was a Demon. The past few minutes are a haze from the adrenaline flooding your system. The only thing you can remember right now is that you need to fly, and you need to fly fast.

You push yourself harder, your wing thankfully going numb from pain.

You can hear the horrible sounds of cackling and cat-calling from behind you and you know the demon is closing in on you. Green leaves pass by under you in a blur and you strain to go higher in the air, knowing that if you get high enough, the Demon can’t reach you. But it’s already too late. The Demon pounces on you, its claws and teeth digging into your shoulders. The extra weight becomes too much for your already strained body and you fall. The branches and leaves of the trees around you are useless to you, hardly providing a soft landing. The Demon springs off your back before you land, causing your impact with the earth to be that much harder. Your Other is tossed from your arms, falling somewhere in front of you.

You lay there on the ground, exhausted and bloodied. You can feel the warm liquid falling from the new wounds on your shoulders, and you almost scream when a foot comes down onto your back.

It pushes you farther into the ground, dirt getting into the gash on your side. You hear feet run around you, light and excited. A mumble of grunts and hisses comes from above you and it’s then that you realize you’re in over your head.

There are two Demons. And one of them was really, _really_ strong. The pressure on your back increases and this time you do scream when your wing is pulled to an odd angle. The wonderful numbness that surrounded it vanishes suddenly, bringing back waves of pain. Your throat goes dry long before you stop making noise, and when the pitiful shrill sounds stop coming, whimpers and pleas take their place. (As if begging for your life would help. They’re Demons. They feed on this kind of stuff [At least, that’s what you’ve been told.].)

It’s quiet when you swallow your protests, as if the Demons chasing you never existed and this is all just a bad dream. But you don’t dream. You don’t even sleep.

The foot lessens its efforts to meld you with the Earth, and the hands playing with your wing still. You think that maybe, just maybe, your tormentors are going to leave you here, having enjoyed their little play time with your body.

Oh, are you wrong.

The foot slowly moves across your back, settling at the base of your wings and the hands reposition themselves on your wing, one going to hold the sharp tip of the middle and the other lying flat on the bone connecting the two places. You wonder for a second what they’re going to do when, in one swift motion, the screaming starts up again. You’re blinded by white hot pain coming from your wing, and after the sickening crack, you hear a deep chuckle and lighthearted giggles from above and beside you.

You have no idea when the foot trapping you to the ground moves, or when the Demon beside you finally decides to stop touching you, but as soon as you realize you’re free once more, you’re on your feet. It takes a couple tries, but when you’re finally standing without the threat of falling, you look around quickly. You see the two hideous creatures kneeling beside your Other (‘ _No_ ’) and you spring into action, the only thing circling inside you head being to protect him.

It’s hard to ignore the fresh pain and force your lead-heavy limbs to move, but you have to. You _have_ to protect him. It’s your one task in the after-life, to protect your Other with everything you have, to save him from evil and corruption, to bring his soul before Him to be judged worthy of your fate. You need to stop these vile creatures from getting to your Other, you need to stop them from getting his soul.

Yes, it’s hard to keep fighting, but you can’t stop until you’ve fulfilled your only task.

You run to your Other, surprising the Demons on either side of him. Your limbs are slow, but in the few milliseconds you have, you scoop him into your arms. You know that you can’t outrun your attackers, so you do the next best thing.

Unfortunately, that next best thing just so happens to break at least ten different rules. And causes you to promptly pass out.

~*~*~

When you open your eyes, a pair of brown eyes stares back at you. There was a gasp and some murmurs, and you ignore the frightened looks sent your way. You sit up, a pain shooting up your back and wing from the movement. You grunt, trying not to show your discomfort. A hand comes out of nowhere, pushing down on your chest, and you look at the owner of said appendage.

“You should lay back down, friend,” he says, and you shake your head in disagreement. It’s a struggle to stand, but with the help of the multitude of hands and arms pushing and pulling you up, it’s less painful than you thought.

You use one of the bodies next to you as a crutch as you look around. It wasn’t exactly what you were hoping for, but a Church is a Church, so you really can’t complain. The humans around you look ragged and dirty, and you assume them to be the homeless, looking for shelter in the middle of the night (a quick check to one of the windows assures you that yes, it is still night).

You are standing in the middle aisle, the wooden benches surrounding you having been pushed back to make room for you and-

If you didn’t already know that you couldn’t feel, you would’ve sworn that panic just spread through you.

You look around for your Other, but he’s nowhere to be seen. You turn back to your crutch, which just so happens to be the minister of this church, and almost frantically ask him where your Other is.

“The boy you came with was bleeding badly. We moved him to the back of the Church until the ambulance arrived-” That was all you needed to hear. You make your way to the specified spot, almost falling down onto the carpet more than once. The homeless men and women around you help you up every time, and you wonder why they would do such a thing, when it finally occurs to you.

They can _see_ you. Not only can they see you, but they can _touch you_. You must be lower on power than you thought.

After what seems like forever, you make it into one of the back rooms of the Church, quickly finding your Other (he’s the only thing in the room other than a bed and a cabinet). For the second time that night, you’re sure that if you could breathe, you would have gasped.

He looks worse than before.

You slide down to the floor and proceed to give yourself the non -feeling version of a panic attack. But a panic attack was based on having too many feelings, right? Maybe you were just unconsciously leaching negative feelings from the homeless.

Or maybe you were becoming so weak that you were turning into a human.

As your inner turmoil rages on, orders by your previous crutch send the humans surrounding you back into the main hall of the Church. “Go and pray” he says. As if praying would help. You know what happens when humans pray. Nothing. That’s what. (It was actually just too complicated for you to care about.) The only thing that could help in this situation was dwindling, your power decreasing by the minute, wasting itself on trying to keep you alive.

You. The pitiful creature that couldn’t even fulfill your one task. You couldn’t even get back to heaven like this, let alone with you Other’s soul. How could you have even thought in passing that you may one day be like him? That one day you may know the joys of being alive in the human world, of being able to feel and breathe and _sleep_?

Someone clears their throat next to you and you jump, ripping yourself from your thoughts.

“You are an Angel, yes?” the minister asks beside you. His voice is gentle and you feel yourself taking his calming emotions for your own.

“Yes,” you hear yourself whisper. You almost flinch at how broken your voice sounds.

“There is a boy here, on this bench. He will die very soon unless you do something, Angel. Will you please save him? I do not want to have innocence wasted in this fine house of worship.”

It takes a moment to sink in, but when it does, you stare at the minister in surprise. If only you could feel surprise.

Why hadn’t you thought of healing your Other earlier? Oh, yeah, because it goes against everything you stand for.

A hand squeezes your shoulder, and you know that although you’ll probably be put to death for it, the decision has already been made for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you like the story? Tell me in a comment! Do you want more? Try asking me nicely, it might just work! Did you absolutely hate it? Maybe punching your computer will help!
> 
> So, I'll see you... next week....


	4. Weak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, but here we are.
> 
> Chapter Three! Yay!
> 
> As always, huge thanks to my beta, LencestuousSlurry, on FF.net (Here: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4808189/ ).
> 
> Awesome ass beta right there.

The blood from your shoulder is sticky and thick. As you coat your fingers in the mess, you can’t help but think how nice a bath would be at the moment. The smell of burning candles and roses helps to give the illusion of your home, and if it wasn’t for certain circumstances, you would take a moment to wallow in the feeling of the air around you.

But of course, you can’t just sit there and let your mind wander. Not when your Other is dying right in front of you.

The minister was happy to get you anything you needed for your ceremony, and as you listed off certain objects, he seemed to get more and more confused. You wonder if maybe he thought something like this could happen without the use of such things, as if this type of thing happens all the time.

To humans, it must seem so, but you know better. You know that this sort of thing never happens.

It’s not supposed to happen. Ever.

Even still, you know how to prepare for it, if only just a little. You know what you need to maximize your ever decreasing power. You know how to arrange the candles so as to not let any stray power cause harm to anything around you.

As you set up your charming circle, you wonder if perhaps it may be too late.

Your Other remains still for the entirety of your preparations. The cut wounds going across his body never cease in their bleeding, and with closer inspection, you realize that they won’t ever stop. The darkening of his skin around the cuts is a clear sign that the Demon who did this knew what they were doing. You hope that you do as well.

Oh no, you’re starting to feel something. You better hurry up.

So you do. You place your bloodied hand onto your Other’s forehead and close your eyes. You whisper a few short incantations and push your power through your fingers, willing them into your Other. A single word passes through your being, ‘Heal’, and soon enough, a bright light shines from beyond your eyelids.

You pass out again before it even starts to go dark.

~*~*~

It’s been forever since you’ve felt the pull of your Commander, or the warmth of your Flight companions. You can’t remember the last time you trained with them, or the last time you saw your Other. You don’t know when you stopped feeling His Love, or when you started to not care.

All you do know is, you’re free.

Free from the chaos of your old ‘life’. Free from responsibility. Free to do whatever it is you want to do. Free to think and say the first thing that pops to mind. Free to laugh as loudly as possible. Free to dance around and scream. Free to scratch your ass and pick your nose, if you wanted to. Free to say profanities, because really, who the fuck cares? Free to wear whatever you feel like wearing that day. Free to drink as much as possible.

Boy, did you love _that_ particular freedom.

As you should. It’s what got you your freedom in the first place.

For you, drinking was an escape. At least, that’s what it started as.

You weren’t always found with a drink in hand. You used to be rather well known for your devotion, actually. But of course, all of the attention pointed your way got to you. All of the pressure of having to be perfect took its toll. You tried to find ways of handling it, the only real thing you could do was pray more (that made the ‘perfect little Angel’ title even worse). You couldn’t go to your other Flight companions, they wouldn’t understand, with Jane having a stick up her ass constantly and Dirk looking more and more like a human ‘robot’ by the day, and Jake hardly ever in one place.

So you turned to the humans.

You found that they all had different ways of dealing with tough situations. Some screamed (You tried that once. It didn’t help.), some exercised (pointless for you, since you never eat in the first place), some prayed like you did, and others drank.

You never understood how drinking helped, having seen the tragedies that can come with it. Until you saw your Other pick up a bottle.

You watched in fascination as she seemed to melt into relaxation. That was the first time you tried it.

You can’t really taste, not like humans can, but the horrid burning as it went down made you gag. When it settled, however, you almost cried in relief as the tension in your body loosened. It was like a little bit of Earth in a bottle. You drank half of it right then and there, not wanting the feeling to go away. You took the rest ‘home’.

It wasn’t long before you were sitting in front of your commander, charged with so many things you can’t hope to remember them all. Needless to say, you never stepped foot in Heaven again.

But that was okay, because now you’re free, and happy, and calm, and peaceful, and-

So when you feel the presence of one of your Flight companions, you can’t help it when you fly into the air, whooping with joy, and start heading towards the long-lost feeling as fast as your wing will take you.

~*~*~

You’re not prepared for what you find.

The feeling leads you a small Church on the outskirts of a hardly noticeable town. Trees surround the settlement, and if you weren’t in so much of a hurry to find your Flight companion, you would’ve liked to enjoy the scenery.

As you near the Church, feeling just a little apprehensive about going to a house of worship, you start to hear things. At first, you pass off the sounds as children playing. But then you think, ‘ _Why would children be playing in the middle of the night?’._ And that’s when you see them.

Well, okay, you’re guessing they’re Demons. You really have no clue.

You land in the middle of the street (Or, you hope it’s the middle. You can’t really land straight at the moment.), right behind the Demons. The two turn away from their antics at the doors of the Church, noticing you in an instant. You wink at them, smiling.

The one on the right moves first, pouncing towards you on all fours. She (you’re not sure about Demon biology, but it looks like a she) uses the claw-like blades on her fingertips to move faster, and for a moment you stand there thinking about how much she looks like a cat. But when that moment passes, you fall into action. Or fly, rather.

Your flap your wings, letting the air move around them and make them, and you, become lighter, until you’re soaring in the air, climbing higher and higher into the sky. You expect it when the cat-Demon gives chase into the air, jumping to try to catch you. You laugh a little at the sight below you, and when she finally gives up, you think that maybe this is all they have.

You don’t expect the air that goes whizzing past your ear.

The other Demon, a strong looking one with more muscle than actual body, holds up another arrow and takes aim. Instead of executing the evasion maneuvers you practiced in your years of being an Angel of the Lord, you stand your ground. Er, you mean, you fly in your, no, no that won’t work. You flap in- You stand-

You stay still, okay?

Another arrow grazes your head, and you feel a section of your hair become loose, the hair clip making it stay in place falling to pieces in front of your face. Your eyes narrow. That was your favorite (only) hair clip. Now you’re angry.

You reach behind you, finding the familiar handle of your rifle, and pull it from the straps holding it in place. You bring it to your front and lazily point it at the Demon.

“This is hoe you shoot someone,” you say. “I mean, how,” comes your quick correction.

Suddenly, a bright light comes from inside the Church just as you’re squeezing the trigger, and you feel a rush of… something. Something that you’ve never felt before, and it’s filling your entire being with comfort and safety, wrapping you up in white, but it’s not cold, the exact opposite, and it’s so warm and nice and amazing and you don’t want to _stop feeling this_ and- you yelp in surprise when someone grabs your foot and pulls you down.

You’re still too full of this feeling and too blinded by the light that you don’t register the searing pain right away. The claws in your sides cause you to scream, and you furiously try to kick and push the offender off of you, but your muscles aren’t working properly and it takes longer than it should.

When you feel warm blood replace the cool metal at your sides, you open your eyes just in time to meet the ground face first.

~*~*~

When the Orders came, you felt an almost-happy. He was finally getting what he wanted (no matter how often he denied it, you knew), and you knew that he would have a good life. But as you and your friend waited to say your goodbyes, you knew that the almost-happiness came with an even greater almost-sadness. You could see it in his eyes when you tried to comfort him. When Dirk finally came into the room, the almost-feeling vanished from his green irises. You decided that he wanted to deal with it alone. You forgot about his almost-feelings and focused on yours instead.

The long hours after he left are torturous. You think that maybe he got lost, or decided to fly around more. Maybe he didn’t want to go through with it. Maybe he was backing out.

Maybe he would end up like your other Flight companion.

It’s almost-devastating to think that maybe you would lose him forever, as well as his Other. That it would happen again. That you would be left with only Jake.

But then something happens. You would use more descriptive words, but you lack the knowledge of such words to describe what it is. The only word that comes to mind is ‘pure’.

Pure power. Pure energy. Pure love and devotion. Pure strength coming, not from you, but from the ones you love. The feeling is overwhelming. The fact that it’s a feeling in itself is very off-putting.

When Jake finds you lying on the ground not five minutes later, you know he had felt it too. Your Commander is very almost-angry when you tell him, trying your best to properly describe what the feeling was.

It isn’t long before you’re flying back down to Earth in search of your Flight companion.


	5. Too Late

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shhhh.

You can’t remember the feeling of waking up as a human, but you’re pretty sure it shouldn’t be this painful. You didn’t even know you could feel this much pain all at one time. After a few moments of getting use to the sensation, you dare to open your eyes. Your head decides that seeing is too much, and another wave of pain passes through your skull at the sight of bright lights and colors. You wait just a little longer before trying again, this time having more luck. When the world around you doesn’t become a painful mix of colors and lights, you glance at your surroundings.

You barely remember what happened before your eyes closed, but fragments of scenery come to the front of your mind. You’re not surprised to see that you’re still in the back room of the rundown church, nor that you’re alone. You wonder exactly how long your eyes were closed (were you sleeping?), but there are no windows to tell you the time. It’s anyone’s guess at this point.

You only register the total silence when it’s broken suddenly by a high-pitched… you guess squeal is the only word you have to describe the noise. You feel a tinge of confusion at who or what would make that unearthly sound. You know that humans aren’t capable of creating such a noise (some can’t even hear it), and the only other un-human thing you know of that was around was the demon who….

That’s right. The demon, or demons, rather. They were still waiting outside, weren’t they? Waiting for you to step foot off this holy site with your Other in tow. As you try to lift yourself from the floor (You passed out right on top of your Other. How undignified.), you realize that walking out of here may never happen, not for you. Your entire supply of power is gone, even the back-up power you stored.

All of it had been used when you healed your Other. Every last drop of power had gone into his body, and while it’d normally seem a little (a lot) concerning, you didn’t have that much power to begin with.

And with the thought of your Other, worry rushes into you. You lift yourself up as much as possible to look at him underneath you. You sigh in relief when you see his midsection rising and falling evenly, and when you check the deep wounds in his body, you swear you almost cry in joy to see them healed and not bleeding profusely. You stare for a few seconds before collapsing on him, making sure that yes, he was breathing, and yes, he was okay.

He’s going to be okay.

As for you, it could be a completely different story.

~*~*~

You lay there in the dark, listening to the sounds coming from beyond the room. You start to doubt your previous assumption that the demons are making all of the noises you hear as they continue on. The sounds are a mixture of familiar shouts and unknown calls. When you start to hear gun shots, you know that there’s a fight going on. For a split second, you wish you could join in, but the feeling passes as quickly as it had come (It’s just so much easier to lay here quietly instead of straining to move).

It seems like hours before the noises start to settle down and fade away. They’re gone soon after, and the silence that follows is deafening. You wait for something else to happen, for anything to happen. If you could breathe, you would’ve been holding in the life-giving oxygen. Your entire body tenses as if trying to do the next best thing.

You wait, lying on top of your Other, who continues to snore on. Finally, you hear a commotion from just beyond the door to the room you’re in. A mumble of words comes through the wood, and you swear you hear your name once or twice. You know that it couldn’t have been, though, for no one in the church knows who you are.

A pleasant shock goes through you as the door opens, revealing those behind it. Standing there was the minister, his hand still on the door, and a little off to the side was a face you had not seen in way too long.

She smiles at you and you would smile back if the light coming from behind her didn’t hurt your eyes so much. She walks into the room and kneels down next to you, looking at you through tired eyes. From this close, you can see the dried blood crusting the sides of her shirt. You can tell that she’s trying to hide the weariness coursing through her, but you’ve known her far too long to be deceived.

“You look a little down in the dumbs, Dirky,” she says, and you relax at hearing her familiar slur. She doesn’t try to correct herself, knowing that you understood her anyway. It really has been too long.

“You don’t look too good yourself, Rox,” you croak out, and you cringe a little at how hoarse your voice sounds. You realize then how dry your throat is, and after a few failed attempts at swallowing, you know it’s not going to get any better anytime soon.

Her smile turns sad for a moment, before she reaches over to your forehead, resting a hand on top of it (Finally). You feel power surge from her fingertips and into you. You let it take its course through your body, healing wounds and replenishing strength.

When she retracts her hand, you blink in quiet relief. You flex your muscles, starting with your fingers. When your stretch reaches your wings, you’re surprised to have no pain from the break you had suffered earlier (Or was it yesterday?).

You thank the heavens when you’re finally able to lift yourself off of your Other and stand on your own two feet. The ex-Angel moves to support you when you start to wobble, and together you make it to the doorway of the room you’ve called yours for the last however many hours. You smirk a little at your own train of thought. That sounded a little more semimetal than it actually was.

The minister, who, up until this point, was still holding the door open, steps aside to make room for the two Angels. You give him a slight nod when you pass, and he seems to understand the gesture.

When you make it to the main hall of the church, you find that your Flight companions are there, waiting for you. You would say that you’re surprised to see them, but you know that now that your power is replenished, you can’t feel anymore. The two Angels look a little worse for wear, but you know they’re okay when they smile their familiar smiles, Jake’s large and happy and Jane’s small and grateful.

No words are exchanged as you and Roxy make your way outside, followed quickly by Jane. By the time you’re ready to take off, Jake is there with your Other in his arms. He hands the sleeping blonde to Roxy, and you would say there are teary farewells, but no one is able to cry. Jake takes her place under your arm and no one looks back as the four Angels go their separate ways, the three Angels back to Heaven, and the ex-Angel and human back to civilization.

It only then occurs to you what might be awaiting you back home.

~*~*~

It’s worse than you expected.

“Angel Dirk of the 413th regiment, Soul Division,”

Then again, you had no idea what to expect.

“You are here in front of the Court of Commandments, charged with going against the Orders of your Commander, and therefore, Heaven and the Lord Himself.”

You suppose you could’ve taken notes from Roxy’s trial, but you had refused to attend that.

“Not only that, but you have been accused of healing your assigned Other, bringing him back from death, and therefore made his soul unavailable for collection.”

Now that you look back, you feel a twinge of regret.

“Do you deny these claims?”

You wish you knew what to say to make all of this right.

“No.”

Instead, you can only make things worse.

“Do you wish to tell why you disobeyed your Orders?”

You want to tell them everything, about the demons, the running, the pain from having your wing almost snapped in half-

“No.”

But you know that no matter what you say, it won’t change your outcome.

“So be it.”

You hope that they give you mercy.

“Then you are hereby exiled to Earth, until the collection of your assigned Other’s soul.”

Oh.

“You will be stripped of your wings and weapons.”

Oh no.

“You will be diminished in power, and will be visible to humans.”

Oh please no.

“You will not be allowed to seek help from any Angel or higher power.”

This was not mercy.

“Should you fail in retrieving your Other’s soul, you will be permanently banished from Heaven.”

Why did you have to be so stupid?

“Willed upon by our Lord and Savior, this shall be your punishment.”

Why couldn’t you have done something better?

“Dismissed.”


	6. Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't over. You know that, right? Right. I have a LOT more for this thing. It'll be rough, and take a while, but I'm hoping to come out on top. We'll see what happens.
> 
> (That awkward moment when you find your sister reading your fanfiction.)
> 
> (That other awkward moment when you fangirl over someone fangirling over something you've made. You know who you are.)
> 
> -.-

His body is heavy in your arms, and it takes more strength than you’re used to to keep him there. You’re low on power and still in pain, but you know you can’t just abandon him to rest up. Besides, you know the journey from this church back to his home wouldn’t be a long one. As you lift your wings and your body into the air, you can hear the sounds of your previous Flight companions taking off as well.

You feel an emptiness that you haven’t felt in a long time. The thought of once again leaving them behind was unbearable, but you know you have to. Dirk needed more than just your quick pick-me-up, and his Other needed to get home before he awoke. You know your duties, and what is expected of you.

But that doesn’t make it any less painful.

As you fly through the quiet night, you reflect on everything that had happened in the last few hours. At time it had just seemed like a blur of events, one right after the other, but now that you have the time to examine them, you see how lucky everyone had really been.

If you hadn’t shown up when you did, the Demons might have done something harmful to get what they wanted (Such as burn down the whole damn church. You saw the matches they were carrying. Or was that just catnip?).

If the Demons hadn’t taken their time in taunting you when you were down, Jake and Jane might’ve shown up too late (They could’ve ripped you into a thousand pieces.).

If Jake and Jane hadn’t shown up at all, you doubt that anyone would’ve made it out alive (Need you say any more?).

If Dirk hadn’t broken the rules and healed his Other, Jake and Jane would’ve have known to come in the first place.

Oh god.

That’s right.

He broke the rules. The number one rule.

You stop mid-flight in horror. You know what will come next. A trial. Just like what happened to you.

What were they going to do to him? Slap him on the wrist? Strand him on Earth like you? Make him human? Throw him down to Hell? Kill him?

As the list goes on in your mind, you don’t notice the subtle shift of weight in your arms. A quiet groan fills the night air, but even that isn’t enough to bring you from your desperate thoughts. As scenarios run through your head of what might happen, you fail to see red eyes groggily open and blink awake.

What does finally get your attention, though, is a panicked “What the Hell?!” from just below you. You look down in surprise at the human still in your arms.

Oh. Look at that. He’s awake. Shit.

“Hey,” you say, drawing out the ‘y’ and giving him a cheeky smile. He gives you a look that says he thinks you’re fucking insane. You smile a little wider.

~*~*~

The rest of the flight is spent in silence, save for the annoyed huffs and shouts of “Holy Hell!” from the human in your arms. When you finally make it back to his home, you can’t help but laugh a little at his confusion. The window to his room is still wide open, and when you enter it, you find that the inside seems to not have been touched in the least. There are blood stains in the carpet and a charming circle still set up. You’re surprised that the room hasn’t caught on fire from the amount of candles littering the floor.

You drop the human unceremoniously onto his bed and start to clean up. Can’t have any other humans walking in on this mess.

As you start picking up all of the candles, the human starts to get chatty. You don’t mind his talking or asking questions, but you know you can’t respond. Letting him know you’re an Angel of the Lord went against everything you’ve been taught and have ever known (Though that hasn’t stopped you before, you suppose. But this is different. It doesn’t really have anything to do with you. [And come on, if he couldn’t figure it out by now, then he sure as Hell didn’t deserve to know.]).

“Who are you? Or, what are you?” he starts with, and you roll your eyes.

“Oh come on Strider, if you dan’t know-”

“Wait wait wait, how do you know my name?” Shit. One sentence and you’re already fucking up. You should really just stop talking.

“Of course I know how you are. I’ve only known you for years,” you brag. Fuck, no. “I mean, who.”

“I’ve… never met you before. How could you know me for that long? Have you been… stalking me?” You laugh at his paranoia. The things humans could come up with. You open your mouth to answer him when you realize that, if you do, you would be revealing everything. There is no easy way to explain who you are, where you came from, or how you know him. You’re earlier slip up would be nothing compared to the complete fuck up this would be. So instead of answering, you bring a hand up to your mouth, pitch the invisible zipper, and zip your lips closed.

Not literally, though. That would be weird.

He sighs dramatically at your antics as you continue to clean. When you have most of the candles in your arms, you move over to the window and drop them to the ground. You’ll get rid of them later.

Now that the candles were out of the way, you move to the blood and chalk stains in the carpet. These would be a lot harder to clean. As you get to work on these, the human flops down onto his back on the bed, and when you look at him a few minutes later, you see his slow, even breaths.

When you get done nearly an hour later, the sun is starting to rise from its hidden place in the sky. The human was still asleep and you move him ever so slightly to get him in a more comfortable position before putting a blanket on him. With a final quick kiss to the forehead, you leave the room quietly and start your trek back to your Earth home.

When you get there, with the door pressed against your back, you finally let the tears flow from your eyes and down your face.

~*~*~

The trail itself didn’t take long. You had sat in the very back, Jake next to you, not being able to sit any closer to your doomed Flight companion. You were in almost-tears the entire time, wishing that you could just do something, anything, to make this right. To make it so that the last day and a half hadn’t happened, and everything was normal again.

But you know your place. You know that no matter how many books you read, papers you researched, defense strategies you came across, nothing could change his fate.

And when his fate was decided for all to hear, you turned to Jake and laid your head on his shoulder, defeat written in your whole body.

But that wasn’t even the worst part. No, the worst part was walking with your exiled Flight companion to the Medicals, and waiting outside for them to finish ripping off his wings.

You think you can still hear his screams echoing in the hallways.

You sat outside the door for what seemed like hours, until Jake finally told you that they sent him down. You never got to say good bye.

So, with your nose buried in a book, you replayed all of the events leading up to that point, wracking your mind for something you, or anyone, really, could have done differently, could have done better.

You find nothing.

Nothing but a chilling emptiness heavy in your chest.

~*~*~

You lost him.

You lost him

You lost him.

You. Lost. Him.

The sentence keep running in circles around you head, becoming louder and more dramatic every time it makes full circle. You try to keep yourself busy and your mind occupied, but you can’t. You don’t have books to bury in, or drinks to drown in. You don’t have an Angel to train, or training to do yourself. Besides, even if you did, you don’t have anyone to train with now.

So you go to your Other.

Maybe she could help you with all of these chaotic feelings.

But as you go to take off, you find that maybe you don’t even have the strength for that. It leaves you a little heartbroken at that thought, but you figure it’s for the best. She wouldn’t know what to do with you in this state.

So instead, you sleep.

You know that you really don’t have to sleep, that you are actually incapable of doing so, but just laying on your mat in the dark gives you the illusion of doing so, and you take small comfort in that, letting your mind and body relax. You know that it’s not the end of the word, that Dirk will be just fine.

He’ll be fine. Everything, will be fine.

At least, that’s what you keep telling yourself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End Part One.
> 
> Part Two will be out soon. (By 'soon', I mean maybe a month or two. Don't hold me to that though.)


	7. Part 2 - How You Killed Them All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning to have a drawing or something as the next 'chapter' so as to break up the different parts of the story, but then I realized I can't draw. :L
> 
> This is the prologue for Part Two, which will have 5 more chapters. Be looking out for those sometime soon.
> 
> Edit: I forgot to change some things around, so I'm re-uploading this chapter. Nothing new, just grammar/spelling fixes.

The bass thrums all around you, enclosing you in a melody of beats and sound. Your heart hammers against your chest along with the beat and you smile a little wider at the high, floating feeling that comes along with it (Decreased blood flow to the brain means a lack of oxygen. Your heart was pumping, but it was too fast. The beat was too fast. You should stop.).

The crowd below you cheers as the song comes to an end, but not without a very last drop. You reach over to the microphone and announce the next song quickly, too quickly for anyone that cares to hear it properly, and start to play it. You don’t wanna keep your fans waiting.

This song is much like the last, with a heavy bass and fast rhythm. It keeps your body moving and heart pumping, even when you start to feel like you could pass out from exhaustion. You play song after song, receiving cheers and whoops at the end of each one. The night starts to become a blur, and before you know it, someone is tapping you on the shoulder, telling you your shift is over. You almost have half a mind to tell him to fuck off (but you really need to stop and go to your crappy apartment and get some sle-), but the bar is calling your name.

Literally.

Standing (using the bar as a crutch, more like) across the large room is a beautiful blond girl, drink in one hand and the other waving you over. You shove your way to her, pushing past the moving bodies and forcing your way straight through the crowd.

She hands you a drink and you down it before even considering what it was. A pleasant buzz shoots through you moments later, and you shake your head, trying to clear it (you don’t want to get  too hammered. Yet). She laughs at you and hands you another one of whatever that was, but you hold onto it this time.

“You’ve certainly out down yourself this time, Dirky,” she slurs, and it takes a beat for you to understand what she said. You smirk, all the same.

“Always do whenever you’re in the crowd, Lalonde,” you fire back. It goes on like this for a few minutes, the flirtatious attitude coming easily. You forget about your exhaustion for the moment and just talk to her. God, it’s been awhile since you talked with her like this (though talking wouldn’t adequately describe the way she’s running her hand up your arm). You can’t remember the last time you were with her, and just her. Alone. Just the two of you.

And then someone bumps into you, and you remember that you’re not, in fact, alone. You smile a little sheepishly at your own thoughts.

“Let’s got out of hear,” Roxy says, and you think that maybe she caught on to your inner turmoil. She always did know you best. Or, does. Know you. What?

“Yeah, babe, one sec,” and you down the drink you're holding (What number is this again?) before being pulled along by her. Either you’re way more drunk than you want to be, or she has a strong grip. Then again, rooftop strife’s will do that to you.

She pulls you out of the building quickly, and before you know it, you’re being greeted by crisp night air. You have a fleeting thought of the time, but you’re too busy having your arm yanked off to really care. She sets a brisk pace down the street and you barely manage to catch up to her before she yanks on your arm again. You wonder for a second where you’re going and nearly slap yourself at your stupidity.

God, what is with you tonight? It’s like you’re not even you. You know that that happens sometimes on really good DJ nights, but you’re usually able to shake that off a few minutes after your shift. Speaking of shift, what time is it again? You check your watch.

Right.

You don’t own a watch.

Shit.

You should get a watch.

You almost trip on your own feet when Roxy suddenly stops beside you, her grip on your arm the only thing keeping you from falling. You thank her silently in your head for saving your beautiful face from meeting the concrete. Your face and the concrete have met before. It wasn’t a great meeting.

When you finally shake those thoughts from your head, you find Roxy staring expectantly at you. The lights from the diner in front of you make shadows across her face and you find yourself leaning in to her a little. She giggles at you before moving away from your reach.

“None of that, Sider. Srider. Stri- whatever. Come on!” She races ahead of you into the dinner, and you forget for a second where you are. Oh yeah, it’s (you sneak a peek at the name before going in), Hard Times Cafe. Whatever that is. You’ve been here before (Right?), and you sit at your usual seat with Roxy (Right).

The place is quiet except for you two, and when you sit down you see that Roxy already has her head in the menu. Like you really need look at the menu to know what to order. You’ve been here enough times to have a ‘usual’. Hell, you could probably make your damn order yourself if you really wanted to.

You look around while you wait for the waitress, and you start to think you’re the only ones in the diner when you suddenly see a shag of black hair. On the complete other side of the diner is a seemingly older couple. They each have a cup of what looks like coffee (Could be tea, because seriously, who the fuck drinks coffee this late at night?) and a small plate of something or another in front of them. They’re engrossed in a conversation to quiet to hear from where you are, but you see the older lady smile softly every now and again.

You sigh loudly.

What is taking the waitress so long?

You start to kick Roxy’s feet underneath the table and she kicks back, hard. Whelp. That ended your entertainment. You sigh again, louder than before, and this time you get the older lady to look over at you for a second. You smirk a little. Time for some fun, it seems.

You wait a few seconds before sighing again, making it even louder. The lady looks at you for a little longer than before, and you try to make eye contact with her. When she looks away, you sigh again. This time the lady looks at you with an annoyed expression, and you try to get her to stare at you in the eye, but then she’s turned back to her conversation. You’re about to sigh again when Roxy kicks you under the table.

“What’s taking so long?” She says as you rub your sore leg.

“Dunno,” you reply. There’s no one that you can see in the back kitchen, and you’re pretty sure no one’s hiding underneath the counter. The lack of employee’s would normally worry you a little, or at least raise your suspicions, but really, who cares about employees when all you want is cheap coffee food?

“Dirkyyyyy, I’m hungryyyyy,” Roxy whines, and you smirk when you see the old lady look at you again. You pat Roxy’s head comfortingly, and this time the lady doesn’t look away. You start to make shushing noises when the other blonde whines again, and you almost jump up in victory when the old man finally turns around to stare at you.

“How about I go see if anyone’s there?” you suggest. She gives a ‘Yay!’ in response and throws her hands up as you climb out of the booth. A quick peek assures you that no one’s hiding underneath the counter (can’t be too sure), and you jump over it with ease. A few minutes in the back kitchen shows that no one is in there either, and you start to wonder where exactly everyone is.

Oh well. You said so yourself, you could make your own meal if you really had to.

“What do you want, Rox?” you call out of the kitchen, and you see her jump in surprise. She whips her head around to you and yells something French sounding. You shrug. Not too different than grilled cheese, right?

You find one of the fancy looking fridges (Well, fancier than what you have, anyway. Or maybe it’s just a freezer? Hell if you know.) and open it. The sight you’re greeted with consists of almost all the same thing (Weird, much?) and it takes a lot of rummaging to find the cheese (How much milk do they really need?).

You turn on one of the equally as fancy stoves (Again, you’re kinda dirt-fucking-poor. You don’t have fancy shit. Not that most would consider a stove-top fancy, but still.) and begin your hunt for the bread. Instead, you find what looks to be pudding. You pull a glob out of the bowl with your finger and taste some of it. Chocolate. You grab the bowl and bring it back to the main room of the restaurant. You figure Roxy might like it.

You have no idea if this is what she wanted, but she squeals when she sees it anyways. You set the bowl down in front of her when you realize that she doesn’t have spoon.

“One sec,” you say to her, and she looks ready to pout. You have no idea why, though. You mean, it’s not like she wanted to eat it with her hands, right? That shit just ain’t lady-like.

Who are you kidding?

You begin raiding the kitchen again for spoons when you start to smell something. It smells like… something. You shrug. Must just be your grilled cheese.

Oh yeah, fuck.

You run back over to the stove thing you were using (You think it’s the right stove. It’s not it’s marked or anything. Where the hell is that bread, anyway?) and stare at the dials. Okay, how did you turn this on again? You try to recall, but your brain stopped working properly over an hour ago. Maybe if you just…. You turn more dials on the stove until you hear a ‘click’ from one of them. You jiggle it a bit just to make sure and, yup, that was definitely the off switch (probably). Good job Dirk. Now, what were you in here for?

Grilled cheese, right. You rifle through the pantry, hunt renewed. All you need is a pan and some bread. Yeah, bread would help. You open cabinet after cabinet and soon enough you’re down to the last one. ‘ It’s always in the last place you look’ you think, and as you reach for the cabinet door, you hear a small ‘click’ behind you. 


	8. Rejoice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so hard to write, like you wouldn't even believe. I had completely different three versions of this thing. What you see before you is just a mash-up of all of those. I hope it turned out nice.
> 
> My beta really helped me through this one: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4808189/

You jolt awake, arms swinging wildly and legs kicking. It takes you a second before you see your room and stop your frantic flailing. The sound of your alarm clock blares in your ear, and you just know it’s going to be a bad day. You wipe your face with one hand and use the other to blindly find your alarm clock. After a few failed attempts at hitting the snooze button, you rest to just unplug the damn thing.

You really don’t want to be awake right now.

You know you should get up, but your body is heavy when you try to move it. The energy you had just moments ago seems to drain from your being, and you seriously consider just going back to sleep. But that would mean missing school, and you’ve done enough of that recently. Someone as hella cool as you can only stay inside for so long.

Okay, that was a lie. You could stay inside for days and be fine with it. It’s just the people around you that get concerned.

When you finally do get up, it's 20 minutes later and to the shouts of your (foster) mother. Your first thought after rising from bed is 'Holy shit, the floor is cold' and the next 'What in the hell did I do last night?'. Your body hurts, but not in the ‘achy-cause-you-just-spent-the-last-9-hours-in-one-position’ hurt. No, this was a bone deep ache, one that started right in your gut and screamed every time you moved your arms a little too high above your head. It's surprising and, most of all, agonizing.

You crumble to the ground with that thought, making a show of crawling across the floor to your bathroom, even though there’s no one around to see. (What can you say? Your ironic skills didn’t just come over night. Gotta keep them sharp.) The pain starts to ease as you move your body around on the floor, but before you even make it to your door, you’re standing up again. The pain makes you almost regret your show of ironic skills. Almost.

After a quick shower, you're ready to climb back into bed (but you foster parents wouldn't allow that, because ‘staying home from school for any reason is a sign of depression’, and that meant a doctor visit. Not like you had enough of those already, right?). (Man, when did you start getting depressing?) (Oh shit, maybe you do need to go to the doctors.) (Note to self: Start taking those doctor questionnaires seriously.)

You take your time walking down the stairs, enjoying the feeling of being freshly cleaned. Normally you’d have set aside an appropriate 4 minutes for this, but seeing as someone (coughfosterparentscough) wanted you in the dining room five days ago, you resolve to just a minimum of just thirty seconds. It really isn’t enough time. Hell, you didn’t even have time to do your patented mirror wink! Speaking of that, how does your hair look? You forgot to check.…

A quick peek into the guest bathroom later and you’re standing in the kitchen. Your foster mother is cooking something (that smells so good you think your mouth is watering. Shit, it is) but instead of sitting at the table and waiting for food like your foster father, you spin around to the front door.

You yell over your shoulder to the two adults as you pull on your shoes, and without waiting for a reply, walk out the door.

Only to walk right back in to grab your bookbag.

You make it up to the bus stop in the nick of time and climb into the vehicle like you hadn’t just been running there like a mad man. Rose doesn’t talk when you take your seat beside her, nor do you try to start a conversation. When you get to school, John is already at your meeting spot. The few minutes before school starts goes by quickly, and as per usual, you and John count down the seconds before the bell rings (John is horribly off, but you get it right on, as usual).

As far as Mondays go, it’s definitely your worst. The day itself is uneventful and normal (except for the various times your stomach tried to kill you with pain), with lunch being the highlight (you don't even remember what you were talking about, but at one point John was laughing so hard milk sprayed out of his nose. It was the most disturbingly hilarious thing you've ever seen.).

You and John walk down to the city hospital after school, and you're glad when you can finally tell your doctor about the horrible pain ripping down you abdomen. When you get to the room, he can tell something is wrong right off the bat. You really need to stop spending so much time here. When he asks you to take off your shirt to take a look, you joke about him wanting to see you shirtless (normally this would be weird, even for you, but all the fun during lunch put you in a good mood). There’s banter about this for a good ten minutes, but when you do finally take off your shirt, you fall silent.

There, starting at your left clavicle, and swiping across your entire chest, ending at you right hip, is a long, thick, black, ugly, painful, oozing, holy shit-

"There doesn't seem to be anything wrong on the outside. Do you want to run a few quick tests to make sure you aren't bleeding in-"

"What do you mean nothing wrong? There's a giant thing-" He lays a hand on your shoulder, and for a second you swear he can tell where the thing is, but instead he looks you in the eyes.

"Dave. Don't shout, calm down.” You were shouting? Please, that was just you raising your voice. “What thing, there's nothing there." Holy hell, how could the doctor not see it?! Was he blind? In the .3 seconds it took for you to take off your shirt did be accidently pour a bottle of bleach in his eyes? What the actual fuck? "We can run a few tests to see if there's anything going on internally. Why don't you lay down and we'll-"

You didn't hear the rest. You mind goes blank as the doctor put his hand to your chest, pushing you to lay down. Pain erupts from every millimeter of skin he touches, and you would have screamed had you not had the wind knocked out of you from the suddenness of it all. It feels like years before you push his hand away (pain is still coursing through you and you spend a good minute trying to catch your breath).

You start shaking your head, mostly to clear your thoughts, but also to tell the doctor that, no, you do not want to run some tests, no, you don't think it's an issue, and yes, you're fine. Everything is fine, even if it does feel like someone just ripped a hole straight through your center and played around inside just for shits and giggles.

You leave quickly after that, pulling your shirt on as you fast walk down the bleached halls of the hospital. You pay no mind to the nurses greeting you, or the patients trying to stop you to chat. You're almost running by the time you make to the oncology ward. John is there, talking with some of the patients, and as much as you would like to just sit there with him and pretend that you hadn't lied, you can't. Because you did lie. Everything is most certainly not fine.

~*~*~

It takes nearly an hour for you to explain what's wrong to John. He doesn't quite seem to believe you, and on more than one occasion tells you to go back to the doctor to "see what's really wrong with you". By the time you get home, you're so completely freaked out by everything that you spend the rest of the day laying on your bed.

You finally get up hours after your parents have gone to bed. With a handful of fresh clothes, you make your way across the hall to your bathroom. You close the door before flicking the light switch on so as to not shine light into your parents’ dark, open doorway. You don't really know why you bother, because the light bulbs are so old, you stand in the dark for a good five seconds before they flicker on.

You're careful about putting your clothes down on the toilet seat, and even more so about taking off your shirt. You don't turn fully towards the mirror yet, instead changing your pants first. You stare at the flowers painted into the walls before taking a deep breath.

You let it out and inhale again. (You're stalling. You don't even know why. You've already seen what it looks like. Maybe it's just because it's in the mirror this time? Or maybe because you're by yourself? Or maybe-)

You (final man-up and) turn around. At first, it doesn't surprise you. After all, you've been thinking about all day. But then, as you reach your arm up to slide your fingers down the gash, it suddenly hits you.

You have no idea what the hell this is. And from what you saw earlier, no one else does either. Because they can't fucking see it.

Your breaths are shallow and quick as you run your hand up and down the gash. It's not oozing like you thought, instead just stuck in what looks like a state of solid decay. You can feel the bumps and ridges and everywhere you touch is on fire. Your breath comes in unsteady, and you feel something on your face, but you're too focused on the blood that's now coming from the cut where you're rubbing it raw. The pain is even worse than when the doctor touched it, and you would have screamed had you not already been.

The pounding on the door soon stops as you foster parents unlock it and rush in. It takes a full ten minutes for you to stop screaming, and another twenty to fully calm down. Your foster parents only see blood everywhere, and you make up a lie for them about it. You don't think you can deal with their questioning gazes. (You doubt they believe you, but the questions stop soon after.)

Some hot coco and an hour later, you’re back in bed. Of course, you don't sleep. You spend the entirety of the next day just laying there, only getting up to eat and use the restroom. You know that you really shouldn't worry so much about this, that they have medication that can fix it, but something about this whole situation unnerves you.

You just can't quite figure out what out what it is.


	9. Waking Up

It hurts. It hurts so bad you want to hurl, but at the same time, you can't even move. What is ‘it’, you ask? Well, the answer is quite simple. Everything. Everything has a sharp ache to it that pounds on a rhythmic beat. Your quick inhales of breath are uneven and raspy. Your entire being screams with confusion as to why this is happening, but you know. You know exactly what's happening.

You're becoming human.

It's slow and painful, and you've been awake for hours already, screaming through the worst of it. Your first inhale of breath was just after the worst bit of pain subsided. Since, you have been focusing your entire being on that one simple action.

Breathe in, and out. In, and out. In-

Holy Almighty, why does this hurt so much? You can't even think. Wave after wave of pain and nausea hit you, like the ocean on the side of a ship, and you can't even begin to fathom where that line came from. Your back hurts the worst. It's where your wings are-... were. It's where your wings were. This time, it's not the pain that makes you cry out.

It’s another few hours before you jolt awake again. Everything is still and you can’t help but relax into the silence. You can't really remember when you had fallen unconscious, but you're thankful for it either way. There are still phantom aches coursing through your body, but the majority of the pain has subsided.

You take in a few lung fulls of air, rejoicing in the fact that you actually can for once in your known existence, and just lay there. The cool ground is soothing, and the silence welcomed. It's not for another what seems like a few hours pass before you begin to move. Even then it’s just the slightest turn of your head, just enough to focus your vision on something other than the dark corner you’ve been staring at for who knows how long. Then the thought comes.

"Where am I?"

You take a few brief moments to turn your head a little more. Not too much though. Don’t want to have any of that pain come back.

It's dark, but not horribly so. You're in a room, what looks to be a wooden one. You can see a sliver of light passing through a crack in the wall, the only light source. Around you is a set of chairs with a table off to the side, and a small bookcase tucked neatly into the corner. There's some cups on the table, what you assume to be water inside, along with a few half melted candles.

All in all, the scenery unsettles you.

You stand up, slowly, using the closest wall as support. Everything aches, but after what you just went through, sore muscles are almost nothing. A few wobbly moments later and you take your first step. Then another. And another. Until finally you're standing in front of the only door in the room. A quick push later and it's just as you thought.

A church. Of course. (Could these guys be any less creative?)

But as you look around, the feeling of unease you had in the room grows. There's dust on the wooden stools and the shaggy carpet covering the floor is littered with, is that animal poop?

Oh, gross, you just stepped in it, and why don't you have shoes on, oh goodness, this is so gross-

Woah, is that a bird skull?

You're mind quickly loses track of trying to figure out where you are in light of what you find collected in one of the corners of the church. A pile of animal bones is piled haphazardly onto one of the stools. While you normally wouldn't make a fuss over such trivial things as this, it is the first time you've ever seen an animal skull in person. The conditions aren't ideal for sure, but you must admit, this is pretty cool.

Ahm. Now. Where were you?

Ah, yes, trying to find out where you are.

~*~*~

It takes you twenty minutes of walking to find the nearest town (which is really just a couple of buildings mashed together in what seems to be a low-end truck stop), and another thirty to find out exactly where you are in relation to the only place you know: your Other's home. It's disorienting looking at a map, as you've never needed one before. The only comfort you have is that you aren't too far away. Maybe a day's walk. Or two. Maybe. (At this point, you have no clue. After all, you've never had to actually walk anywhere before.)

You begin your journey with little flourish, walking in the direction the map said. (What you hope the map said, anyway.) It takes you a few hours to realize that you were indeed misguided and are, in fact, going the wrong way. It doesn't take long to get on the right path though, and you're grateful.

Wow. Grateful. That's a weird feeling. But kind of nice?

Either way, it's a feeling, and you have to take a moment from your walk to let that really sink in. You take perhaps just a little longer than you should have reveling in this train of thought.

You can actually feel now. Or, what you hope is feeling. Oh look, another one. How you wish you could tell your flight mates about this. A pang of something sharp hits you in the chest, and for a moment you put your hand to it, checking for a wound. When you see no blood nor cuts, you realize that the stabbing feeling going through you is just that, another feeling.

It’s not like the other ones you’ve felt in the last few hours, and you’re not sure if you like it just yet. Then again, even something negative is still something. You’ve said that already, haven’t you? Maybe? You don’t even know anymore.

You wish for a second that you had someone to help you keep track of these things. It’s trivial, but to have another person here to help guild you would be nice. Someone to protect you, like you protect your Other.

That's right. You have to get to your Other. You had almost forgotten.

You start walking again.


	10. Introducing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's short comparatively, I know, but I didn't want to make it drag on.
> 
> As they say, short, sweet, and to the point.
> 
> My Beta: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4808189/

"And you can't even go look for him?" The sorrow in her voice was astounding, and you feel a twinge of gratitude. For someone she's never known, she sure cares a lot about him. You can only imagine what you would do if she didn't. 

"I'm afraid not. My commanders have made doing so an offense." Her face doesn't contort into one of pity when you say this, even though you feel that maybe, just maybe, you deserve it at this point.

"Well, when have the rules ever stopped you before?" She says it slowly, almost as if she's trying to take back what she's said before it even comes out of her mouth. You narrow your eyes a little at her, angry that she would even think about saying that.

She raises a good point. But still!

"You know that I can't up and leave without some kind of reprimand! If I do something silly now, who knows what could happen!" She doesn't look very impressed with your point. If you were her, you wouldn't be either. She leans back, straightening her spine, and puts her hands on her hips. You have to say, it looks a little foolish with her sitting down.

"You’re right, no one knows what could happen, but then who’s to say you couldn’t just up and fix everything? Who knows what could be happening to Dirk  right now! " The thought chills you. It's not like it hasn't crossed your mind before in the last several days, but in those times you could at least deny all feelings and squash every passing image and pretend it was all okay. But you couldn't do that now, not here, not with her. She'll know if you start to try to end this conversation, or avoid where it will inevitably go.

You sigh, and throw the cards in your hands down. She's won this round, like she always has (Both in cards, and the conversation. Funny how that works.). It would leave a sour taste in your mouth were you not expecting (and hoping for) it. You look at her with something akin to a forlorn expression.

"What do you suggest I do then?" She smiles in victory, like she always does, and relaxes her verbal battle stance, leaning back over the hard book in front of her (It was the only hard-back surface she had in the room. You couldn’t very well play card games on a soft bed, now could you?).

"Well," she starts off, trailing for a moment to look at the cards in her hand. She places one down onto the pile in front of her before continuing, "if I were you, I would save my damsel in distress!" You give her a questioning stare, and pick up your cards again (you hadn’t realized you were still playing, it seemed to you that more important matters were afoot now).

"What do you mean?" You place a card down, not really looking at what it was. The corner of her mouth goes up just the slightest, and you know she's about to win the card game, not that it's much of a surprise. You've had too much on your mind to really focus on playing.

"Go find him. Help him clear his name. You know,  save him ." She places the final card down and you see that yes, she's won. Her victory dance is neither short, nor sweet. In that time you realize exactly what it is she's asking you to do.

"I can't do that alone, you know." She pauses her dancing just long enough to nod at you, her arm flinging back a second later to make a shuttering movement.

"I know." Is all she says. A few minutes of awkward one sided dancing later, and she's back to sitting calmly on her bed, staring at you with her ever knowing gaze. She breaks the silence that has spread between you for only a moment. "I'm going to John's in a few days." It's soft, like she doesn't want to somehow ruin what little stillness there is in her room. She's waiting, looking at you with big green eyes that, if you didn't know any better, would say were full of innocence.

You let her words sink in, and nod ever so slightly.

She leans over, after that, arm reaching past you into the nightstand. A few seconds of rummaging and she pulls out a small green string, wrapping it tightly around her finger. You help to place the knot.


	11. Something Is Wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Last chapter for Part Two is blah, so I don't know when I'll up-date again.
> 
> But work on part three is going good. It may be done in... let's say... Two months?
> 
> Hope Y'all enjoy.

Something is wrong.

This, of course, is not your first conclusion.

You can recall the exact moment you realized something was different. He was talking to you, head turned halfway to you so as to see less interested than he actually was. (It was all apart of his 'cool charm'. You've noted it in your file of him.)

His interest in your conversation was less than usual, though you doubt he noticed. The way he rubbed at his shoulder every few words had you watching his carefully, and you noted several things throughout the exchange of words:

1) He was rubbing his shoulder, not in a way that indicates nervousness, though, but in a way that signals pain. He was hurting from something, and the fact that his hand roamed down to the middle of his chest said that it wasn't a small pain.

2) His voice said nothing of pain or discomfort, though you noticed more pauses in between his sentences than strictly necessary. Of course, he had all of the 'ironic' pauses, but after almost a year of speaking to him, you've gone deaf to those.

3) His body was hunched, but not in the 'too-tired-to-sleep' way (well, that was always there with the early morning bus rides), but it was as if he were trying to curl in on himself without really knowing it. His body was trying to cradle itself, following the line of where you suspected this mysterious pain was.

4) He was tired. You could sum up all of your previous observations based on this alone and toss them to the wind, but something in you told you not to. This wasn't about not getting enough sleep, this was something deeper.

At the moment, though, you write it off as something to be figured out later. You had classes to go to, after all.

~*~*~

He calls you later that day, almost crying in panic. You try to calm him down, but he hangs up before you can figure out what's wrong. You resolve to question him the next time you see him.

~*~*~

He doesn't go to school. When you go to his house later, his guardians turn you away at the door. You note the ‘at his request’ the mother muttered when she thought you weren’t listening.

You don’t see him for another week.

~*~*~

The knock at your door is unexpected, and while you would normally just ignore it and continue reading, the constant banging had you worried. You unravel yourself from the tight cocoon of the many blankets that you’ve burrowed into over the course of the day and make sure you’re somewhat presentable (you never know who could be at the door).

When you do finally reach the main entrance, you find a very disgruntled looking blonde staring at you from the other side of the doorway. It’s of no surprise to you when he walks right past you and up the stairs leading to your room. You shut the door and lock it tight before following him.

He flops down onto your bed as soon as he sees it and wraps the blankets you were using around himself. You sigh, and though it doesn’t go unnoticed, you let him keep the blankets anyway. You carefully seat yourself on the edge of the bed, facing him as much as you can, before beginning what was sure to be a very long session.

"It's been a few days, Dave. How are you feeling?" It was almost tradition to ask this question. His health was one of leading factors in his life, so it was only customary for you to inquire about it.

"Don't patronize me, Lalonde." Is his curt answer. You feel a little attacked at that, but you don't show it (you never show anything). Were you patronizing him? No, he was just trying to lead you away from the question. So which comment was it then? You recall a few days prior, to the surprise phone call you got from him. Did he say something about his health then? Or maybe he was trying to avoid whatever it was that was bothering him at that time.

Interesting.

"I'm not patronizing you Dave." You decide to let him give you the answers. It wouldn't do for you to just sit in pondering silence. He huffs at you from underneath the blankets, and turns (it was more of a wiggle, and you have to put a hand to your mouth to stop the giggle from coming out) so that he can pull the warm cloth from his face.

He stares at you from behind his sunglasses, perhaps wondering if you were going to go on. When his mouth opens a fraction, then closes again, you see that he was in fact waiting to speak.

What did he want to say? You try to pull everything you've learned in the past few days to help understand. With him, it was always easier to just do the talking for him (At least for the meaningful talks. Sometimes you just sit with him and let him talk for hours about nothing. It helps the both of you.).

You have two options using the clues given to you before. Of course, if you take into account his lack of school. It must be important enough for his guardians to let him stay home, or at least, important enough for him to 'trick' his guardians into letting him stay home. You also have the physical appearance of when you last saw him (the subconscious rubbing of his shoulder, the want to almost protect himself without knowing it). Then there was the phone call. That spoke louder than all of the other clues you’ve had, and yes, you finally decide.

This was something about his health, and if he was this upset about it, it must be bad news.

You’re never one to rule out the impossible though.

You turn you attention back to the only other person in the room when he clears his throat. You think that maybe he might have said what it was already by his pained facial expression, but no, he couldn't have. The silence is too thick for you to not have noticed him speaking. But his eyebrows are furrowed, and his mouth set into a grimace that is only broken when he tries to speak. His hands are repeatedly clenching and relaxing a firm hold on the blankets bunched around his chest, his knuckles going white every few seconds.

It doesn't matter if it's good news or not; to him, it's bad. Very, very bad.

"You're getting worse, aren't you?" You decide to end his suffering early, hoping a 50 percent chance is high enough for you to guess correctly.

He surprises you when he shakes his head. But this doesn't make any sense, if he's not worried about something bad, then that means it's something.....

"I'm cured."

~*~*~

To say that you were surprised was an understatement. It was, more or less, a miracle. He tells you what happened over the last week, starting with the bus ride where you first noticed it. He recalls it like a script, like everything was actually just a dream, with no real impact on his life. His face gets more sober the more he talks, and at certain points you start to think that maybe he's trying to learn from John, that maybe this is all a huge prank. But you can tell that it isn't, that he isn't lying to you, but he is almost certainly trying to lie to himself.

Is he trying to do that? Why isn't he happy about this? He stops talking, catching up to the present in his story. You don't know what to say. For the first time since you've decided to counsel him, you are at a loss for words. It unsettles you, and you're sure that it shows because when he looks at you he sighs in what seems to be disappointment.

You don't try to stop him as he gets up from your bed and walks out the room, nor do you speak when you hear the front door open and close. It takes until your mother's walks in, three hours later, for everything to finally settle in. He's cured of his disease, no longer living on borrowed time. He is going to live a full life, graduate from high school, maybe get married, maybe have a few kids. He could do anything now, and never again have to fear if today was going to be his last. He’s free.

And very, very sad.

Something is wrong.

And you have no idea what it is.


	12. Brewing Trouble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this chapter brings actual Plot! *Jazz Hands* And the end of Part Two. Next up: Part Three - New Faces.
> 
> This wasn't really proof-read, so if it's weird or there are mistakes, they're all mine. I'll fix 'em if you tell me to. (There were actually a lot of things I needed to edit with this whoops. I forgot that Archive doesn't copy italics or things when pasting a document. It's been a while. ^^')
> 
> Enjoy!

The darkness seeps in around you, growling and clawing at your being. The rain stings your thick skin, leaving the feeling of needles in every exposed patch. The air howls and pushes against you, almost like it’s trying to take you to another place, one off course and dangerously far from where you need to be.

Over all, it made for the perfect night.

Other than your jumpy companion, you're alone, walking through the silent streets as if there was nothing wrong. The street lamps flicker as you walk past, and you have to resist the urge to jump at them. Man, do your claws itch.

You’ve been walking for hours, down streets, sidewalks, and grasslands. Neither you nor the brawny ‘human’ to your left have stopped to rest. It’s not like you’re in any hurry though, if anything you’re trying to make time pass faster, but you haven’t felt the urge to close your eyes for years. Or was it centuries? Who knows. Either way, it’s been too long.

And it would have all ended had it not been for that rotten  ** _ ~~Angel~~_** who ruined everything.

Lucifer, now you have to go _burn your brain_ just for even _thinking_ that word.

Now now, let’s not get all dramatic. You’ll need your brain to kill that _thing_ later. Oh, what you wouldn’t _give_ to meet it again. All the beautiful things you could do to it’s wings. And the tattoo’s! Man, you could trace those things for hours with your claws. And you might even be able to have the time to enjoy it next go around, with no urgent plans or pesky partners.

Oh, you could purr at just the thought of it.

“Ah!” you jump, instinctively going into a fighting stance (which, as you know, could use a lot of work). The fingers drop from their position in front of your face. You look to the person the hand it is attached to and pull your ears back.

“What was that for?” Your voice is high pitched and cutesy, something you could love about it.

“You were zoning out again.” You’re partner's voice, on the other hand, is low and clear. He looks at you as if his explanation justifies snapping his fingers right in front of you. He _knows_ what you think of that. You scowl a little harder.

“We’re here,” he says, and gestures to the dark alleyway beside you. You look at it to determine that, _yes_ , it is the one you want. Of course that doesn’t stop you from dragging your feet as you walk closer.

You reach the end of the small passageway too soon.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this….” You’re not looking at him (your eyes follow the trail of a lost rat, circling its way through the trash in front of you), but you can tell you caught him off guard. He lowers his wrist, knife still in hand.

“What do you mean?” He voice comes out softly, gently pulling your eyes along to look at his.

“We didn’t get the soul,” You say, and it’s a whisper. You don’t think he heard you over the pouring rain, but he must have gotten the idea because you’re barely finishing the last word before he’s right there. He reaches out and puts a hand over your shoulder. You lean into it.

“And?” He says it as if there’s nothing wrong.

You sigh heavily.

~*~*~

Your wrist still hurts. It’s not bleeding anymore, thankfully, but every movement causes a string of pain to snake its way up your arm. Normally, you would complain about it, about the uselessness of it and the portal into the underworld. Normally, going _up there_ would be something to scoff at and leave to those who were either desperate or suicidal.

This… isn’t one of those normal times. It hasn’t been for a while. You’re not sure whether or not you could be happy knowing that.

The trip to the outer chambers is a short one, though with all the stares and whispers, it feels like forever. Beings crowd around you and your partner, trying to get a look at what would have been a soul in your claws. As expected, they follow you when you push through. Friends, allies, and enemies alike form a mangled march behind you as you continue your way to the outer chambers.

The guards are waiting for you when you get there, and they let you pass with ease. The crowd, however, stays right outside.

You could really hope they’re not there by the time you leave. _If_ you leave, that is.

Though you left a crowd outside the gates, there are still plenty of eyes that follow you. The beings of the outer chambers are different, but that doesn’t stop them from following you to the inner chamber. Yet again, they form a broken march in your wake. You don’t watch them, though. You don’t move your eyes from the ground right in front of you. Your partner gently places a hand on your back to guide you after you almost run into a wall.

It could almost be comforting, but then again, you’ve never felt any discomfort either.

The inner chamber is the worst. Instead of too loud whispers or blatant stares, you get nothing. The mindless servants that wander the swirling halls and walkways pay no attention to you. You stop, forcing your partner to stop alongside you. It takes a moment for you to find your voice.

“We don’t have too, you know.” A pause. You don’t look at him, nor do you raise your voice above a whisper. “We could leave. We could just, run away. Go back to the surface and-” Your words catch in your throat when he puts his hand on your face. He pulls, ever so slightly, and when you look him in the eyes this time, all you can see is his solid blue.

“You know we can’t,” it’s soft and calming, and you hold back a choking gasp. His thumb strokes your face, and you can’t help but turn your head into the feeling. You already know that, of course. You couldn’t just run away, you couldn’t just leave, and most of all, you didn’t have a choice anymore. You were stuck, now. Stuck with whatever fate the Commander deemed appropriate for you and your partner.

Because, bottom line was, you didn’t complete your mission. You didn’t get the soul. And worst of all, you let the Angel escape.


	13. Part Three - Uneasy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH BOY. LOOK HERE. WHAT IS THIS???  
> This is me, reviving a story that's been dead for nearly two years. The last update was Sept. 25, 2015. Yup.
> 
> So, anyway, not dead. Over the past few years I like to say I've gotten better at writing, and this entire story needs SO MUCH FREAKING EDITING. So maybe I'll do that soon. I have a total of 4 chapters backlogged, not including this one, so that should give me some time to work on editing. Now it totally not the time to be doing any of this, what with school and scholarships on the line, which means I'll be working on this for the next three weeks straight, of course.
> 
> I'm doing all of this in celebration of reaching over 1000 hits (which happened several months ago whoops), so you know what that means! The more feedback I get, the more inspired I'll be to actually take this piece of shit seriously. :) But seriously, thanks to all, even if you're new. <3
> 
> Without any further ado, the beginning of Part Three.

The scroll is tough and rigid, it's edges worn and yellow. It rolls back neatly, having cemented the circular shape centuries ago. The next scroll is much like the last, and so is the one after that. Tiny marks swirl with each other on the pages, depicting words of treachery's in calligraphy that has been passed down the ages. Each story has its own beginning, it's own original progression of plot. But yet, story after story, scroll after scroll, each and every one comes to the exact same ending.

An _end_.

This is nothing new to you. You've seen some of these things first hand, some of the newer ones you can even recall from your own memory. You've seen the sentences, and the trials leading up to them. You've been apart of the jury, made some of the decisions. You know what all of this means to your fellow angels.

So why does it bother you so much?

It's not as if you hadn't seen it coming. You've known the consequences of his actions since the minute you saw his Other. Even in his unconscious state, you could feel the difference. It was swimming around him, filling his entire being and space closest to him with energy. Normally, this would only give you slight concern (it's not exactly common, but things of the like do happen sometimes), but the knowledge of where the power had come from, the signature of the energy floating in the air, that had you…

You swallow. It’s not like you can have emotions, but if you could, you’d say you’re feeling almost worried, anxious, or even _angry_ \- but you can’t, so you don’t think much on the twist in your gut. You’re probably just feeling something from the lack of meditation recently.

For the past week you’ve been in the Grand Library. As a usual place for you to visit, no angel thinks any more of your prolonged stay. No one asks you any questions, or bothers your solitude. You’ve been alone, sitting at an oak wood desk, reading every scroll you can get your hands on. You’re looking for something, anything, that can help-

“Ow,” the whisper startles you, even more so than the pain coming from your right index finger. You bring the appendage into view and watch as a bead of blood starts to form.

_Of course something like this would happen_ , you think, rolling your eyes at the throbbing paper cut. You sigh and lean back in your chair. It’s probably time for you to leave the Library anyways.

Cleaning up your work space takes little time, even with the large amount of scrolls stacked over every flat space (you’ve had enough practice with even more of a mess for this to be a relative breeze). You keep your bloodied finger out of the way of any scroll, though. You don’t want to damage any of the fine paper with stray blood stains.

The flight to your small living space (it’s not exactly what you would call a house, and it certainly isn’t a home) is short, but you take that time to clear your head of any and all thoughts concerning what you were doing at the library. You don’t want to add to the weird funk your last remaining Flight companion has been in recently.

It’s not like he can feel, but he’s convincing enough that it has you almost concerned. He’s not like he used to be before this mess. He’s not the same.

Of course, you aren’t either, but at least you’re trying.

He, on the other hand, isn’t doing much of anything these past few days.

It’s not like you two hadn’t expected this. It’s not like you hadn’t be _waiting_ for this to come. The day that he left was suppose to be a good one. That meant that he had finally gotten his Other’s soul, that meant that he was _human_. But, things always seem to go wrong with you and your Flight. Because not only had he not gotten the soul, but he had been banished as well. He had been sent to Earth until he could bring his Other’s soul before Father.

Which was a death sentence in disguise.

How in the world was he suppose to be able to make it back to Heaven without his wings or other Angels to help him? They didn’t just banish him, they doomed him. And, to be honest, they might as well have just killed Jake too. It’s not like he’s of any use without Dirk.

You shake your head viciously at the thoughts floating into your consciousness. Why would you even _think_ that? You need to just take a breathe or two and calm down (not that you can feel ‘calm’ or anything).

When you get to the shared living space, your other Flight companion is nowhere to be seen. You let out a breathe you didn’t know you were holding. Suddenly, a thought pops into your head. You feel the corner of your mouth twitch up, and decide to follow your still twisted gut.

You don’t know how long it is before you hear the door to your little space open. Although your concentration is broken, you don’t move from your sitting position in the middle of the floor. You listen to your Flight companion as he tries to move quietly through the space. He was never one for quiet, though, what with his large wings and all. You snicker a little at all the racket he’s trying not to make. It only gets funnier when you hear him trip over the scrolls you’ve laid out over the floor.

“Okay, fine, I give up.” You turn to look at him when you hear that, and put a hand over your mouth to stop from laughing out loud. He’s sitting back, seemingly to have fallen right onto his butt, with scrolls all around him (There was one unraveled sitting on his head. You have no idea how it got there, but it makes you laugh nonetheless.). Only when he raises a hand in defeat do you get up to help him.

“You put those there on purpose, didn’t you?” His tone is accusing, and you shrug innocently. Of course you did, nothing can raise your spirits like a good prank, but he doesn’t need to know that.

He’s smiling for the first time in days, and your barely contained chuckles turn into a warm smile. It’s nice to see that expression again. To be honest, you didn’t really know if your little prank would have such a good effect. When the thought had popped up, you had just went with it. The first few minutes you were sitting on the floor, after the deed had been done, you had almost gotten back up to clean the whole thing before he got home. It was childish of you to do something like this. It was nonsensical. But of course, you had made yourself forget about it and wait for the arrival of your Flight companion.

These little pranks had always cheered up your Other, why couldn’t they do the same for you? Well, other than the obvious fact that you don’t actually _have_ emotions. But that’s not the point.

Besides, with your Flight companions hand in yours and a smile on both your faces’, it seems to have worked out anyway.


End file.
